German director Angelina Maccarone recently took some time to speak with AfterEllen.com via email about her latest film, Unveiled, about an Iranian woman who flees to Germany to escape persecution for being a lesbian. Fariba (Jasmine Tabatabai) assumes a male identity in order to gain asylum, and takes a strenuous job at a sauerkraut factory in a rural German town. Soon Fariba’s freedom is in jeopardy again and she must protect her new identity—at the risk of not only deportation but possible rejection by a woman she is falling for.

AfterEllen.com: How long were you writing and developing Unveiled? How did it change and evolve from your original vision to its eventual translation to the screen?
Angelina Maccarone: Judith Kaufmann (DP) and I had the first idea for the story in 1998. We worked on the script on and off until 2004, when we finally made the film. The script underwent many serious changes, as characters that were important in the beginning became less so or vanished, and new characters came to life. But the core remained untouched. We wanted to tell Fariba's story, and in the process of doing so we tried to invent the most precise circumstances to mirror her emotional journey.

AE: You’ve said that you collaborated with Jasmin Tabatabai (who plays Fariba) on reworking the script. What kinds of changes did you two come up with together?
AM: In 2002, after working on the script for four years, I sent Jasmin a copy. We met several times to talk about it and she told me her opinion. Since she knows so much more about Iran than we do, her insights were very helpful for Judith and me for our rewriting. Basically the character became more subtle, not as outspoken as she had been. We had a long time of rehearsals as well, which helped to get to the core of the emotions within scenes and sequences of the story.

AE: What was the biggest challenge for you in making this film? In what ways has it been rewarding?
AM: The biggest challenge was to tell a story that takes place in very real circumstances of German society. I wanted to be totally exact when it came to political facts to make it a story that matters on this level as well. To have an actress disguise herself as a man is another big challenge. To me Jasmin did a great job and I am especially happy that we succeeded, I think, with creating a "male" character that is not based on typical cliches.

AE: How did you come by the English title and how do you think it frames the film differently than the original title, Fremde Haut?
AM: Wolfe, our U.S. distributor, came up with the English title Unveiled. I like it a lot since it touches upon different levels of the story. Fariba does not have to wear the veil anymore when she arrives in Germany but she has to hide her true self behind a male disguise. She longs to get rid of this new veil and at the same time fears to be unveiled as a woman by others.

Fremde Haut could be translated as "a stranger's skin." On the one hand it means to wear another person’s personality, and on the other it has an erotic notion to it.

AE: Your film delves deeply into issues of identity, roots and belonging, and what happens when someone loses those things—homeland, culture, gender, name—that seemingly define them. What sparked your interest in exploring these themes; what draws you to them?
AM: As you said in your question: I believe that identity is to a great extent defined by where we live, what we do, whom we love, etc. My interest in writing a story about a woman who has to leave all of that behind is to ask: Who are we when all of these self-defining elements are gone? What is at the core of a human being and of being human? This is exactly what we tried to do in the story. So your question is already the answer.

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